The Second Redbeard Effects Pedal is the Suitably Aggressive High Gain Honey Badger Sub-Octave Fuzz with a Twist!

Readers will know by now that I really like the first Redbeard Red Mist Distortion and that it’s part of my current active pedal-chain. On encountering this follow-up release the immediate thing that springs to mind is my Gamechanger Audio / Third Man Records Plasma Coil - which also happens to be something of a yellowish hue - and has a number of Sub Octave effect modes to it also.

The Twist with the Honey Badger is that you have an ’Octave’ Knob that Blends in the amount of Octave with the Fuzz Distortion, but you also have a ’Divide’ control which allows you to blend between -2 octaves CCW and -1 octave CW - meaning actually that the middle 12 o’clock position is a blend of both 2 octaves down and 1 octave down. As expected really for a pedal this smart - the Octave is switchable via its own dedicated footswitch, although it can only be used in conjunction with the Fuzz, and not as a stand-alone effect.

As Rabea demonstrates in the first of the below videos - there is a huge amount of versatility right around all the dials - with pretty usable tones yielded even at the extremes. Mikey Demus and Adrian Thorpe have obviously done another sterling job of calibrating and tuning in the pedal for it to be quite this practical. I have nearly 200 fuzz pedals in my collection - with several Octave Up varieties, but really quite little in the Sub-Octave department - so this is likely another must-buy for me.

I will do a more in-depth review once I get my hands on one - pricing for the Honey Badger is a little higher than the Red Mist - or £199, versus £185 for the former, while these are expected to ship around mid-March. I expect to have one by around then - possibly sooner - and I will hopefully provide some further insights on the development and deployment of this particular pedal!